Nightmares
by cleverkateroo
Summary: Everyone is afraid of something. Our fears plague us at our most vulnerable: when we sleep. It's a universal fault of human beings. Of course, it never occurred to me that this applied to my infallible baby sister.


**I wrote this on my way home from the beach. I love the Katie/Kendall relationship, and I love Katie's character, but I always thought they should explore the fact that underneath it all she's still just a little girl who needs a big brother. I loved the part in the pilot episode when it was revealed that Kendall used to sing Katie asleep. It was so revealing of their relationship. :) **

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KENDALL

"AUUUUGGGGHHH!"

My eyes snapped open as a piercing scream cut through the apartment. I lifted an arm in a drowsy attempt to defend myself from whatever danger was obviously afoot, though unfortunately I was a bit of a thrasher in my sleep and I had effectively cocooned myself in my dark navy and ash grey comforter. Most mornings, I relished the battle to free myself from the warm embrace of my bed, but this particular morning (evening? what time was it?) I found myself cursing my goose-feather paradise as the carpeted ground rushed towards me. _Thud._ Ow. Why was I awake?

"AHHHHHHHHHH!"

Right. Screaming. Female screaming. Mom? No, too high pitched. I struggled to place the sound as I detangled myself, staggering to my feet. I could see James' head lifting from his satin pillow, no doubt wondering the same things I was. His hair was perfect, of course. Why was it always so perfect? I rubbed sleep out of my eyes, smacking my lips drowsily. I had been thinking about something other than James' hair…

"KENDAAAAAAAALL!"

I sobered up almost instantly as I recognized my name, registering whose voice it was. _Katie._ I was at the door before I even knew it, ripping open the door and taking the five stairs in one broad stride. I was at her door in no time, busting it down with one shoulder and leaping into her room. There was stirring behind me, and I knew the other boys were on their way.

"Katie?" I scanned the room, my eyes adjusting to the dark. There didn't seem to be anything amiss… In fact, Katie was still in her bed. Was she messing with me? "Katie?" I walked closer, leaning over her bed cautiously, half expecting her to leap up any moment and hit me with her large giraffe stuffed animal. (don't be fooled by its seeming innocence; it's filled with rocks and used for punishing.)

"Kendall, what's going on?" Logan's groggy voice reached my ears, and I glanced over my hunched shoulder to see my three best friends collected in the doorway, all still wearing their footed, fleece pajamas. L.A. summer nights weren't as forgiving as they might seem. Logan was clutching a large black flashlight, the pool of light hovering below me on Katie's pink pastel blanket. I never had figured out how she tolerated that monstrosity. James was peering over Logan's left shoulder, eyebrows arched, holding two hockey sticks above his head. Carlos seemed unusually tall, perched over Logan's right shoulder (further investigation revealed he'd pulled a chair over to stand on), his helmet safely on his skull, holding a large plank of wood to his chest. Leave it to the boys to be ready for anything.

"I don't know, nothing seems to be wrong." I replied, turning back to where my younger sister was curled in the fetal position on her gag-worthy bedding. "Katie?" I reached down, placing a large hand on her shoulder and shaking gently. She groaned, curling up tighter as her face contorted in something disturbingly similar to pain. "Katie." I shook with more insistence now, and she gasped, large brown eyes flying open as she sat straight up, staring at me with a horrifyingly blank expression, as if she didn't see me.

"LEAVE ME ALONE." She howled, lifting tiny arms to cover her face, trying to scramble backwards away from me. She backed dangerously close to the edge of the bed, and I balked at the thought of her going over the edge and hitting her head.

"Woah there, little sis!" I cleared her twin-sized mattress in a single leap, catching her under the arms and lifting her away from danger. She shrieked, struggling hard, but I held her tight against my chest until she grew still. "Katie, Katie, it's me. It's Kendall. Calm down." I murmured comforting words, stroking her back as I sat near her pillow. My back-up troops had run forward when I'd leapt across the bed, and now they too sat around me, concerned gazes trained on my little sister as she finally seemed to calm down.

"K-Kendall?" Katie's voice sounded so small, meeker than I'd ever heard her before. I had half a mind to check that it was, in fact, the same girl we'd been assaulted by the night before with water balloons filled with ketchup so that she would be the only one not in the bathroom when Mom got home with the cheesecake.

"Yeah, it's us. What's wrong?" I murmured, leaning around to get a better look at her. I didn't like what I saw. Fear and pain clouded Katie's normally smirking face, tears brimming at the edge of her wide eyes, her lower lip quivering with the threat of more tears.

"I had a nightmare." Katie whispered, more vulnerable than I'd ever seen her before. Beside me, I heard Logan make a soft noise of concern as he shifted to lean closer to my sister, his brow furrowed in concentration and worry. He extended one dainty hands (wow, he had really girly hands) to brush away the bangs I'd just been stroking. Katie recoiled more sharply than I expected, and I almost lost grip of her, though I quickly corrected myself.

"Katie…" Logan began, and I could hear in his voice that he'd figured something out. Go Logan! "Did your nightmare have anything to do with the fact that you have a black eye?" I suddenly felt light-headed as I could feel the blood rush to my head, my face turning red in shock and horror as I spun Katie to face me, examining the puffy eye I had attributed to her crying. As I swiped a finger under her lashes, I could feel powder coming away on my fingertips. _Concealer?_

"Katie…?" I couldn't keep the betrayal out of my voice as a thousand scenarios played themselves out in my head, the tamest of which leaving me sick to my stomach. I refused to even seriously consider the more wild of tales that occurred to me; nothing like that would ever happen to _my _baby sister… Right? "What happened, Katie." It was more of a demand than a question, but I was feeling a little demanding. With her eyes still downcast, Katie began to recount the story I would never be able to un-hear.

_KATIE ((_I know it's a little confusing but I kind of like the style so I won't change it.. let me know in reviews if it works or not. _Italics_ are Katie's narration. Regular is Kendall's first-person thoughts._))_

_I was in the classroom half an hour before class was scheduled to begin because Mom wanted me to make sure to get the most out of my education. _[The Palm Woods education system was lackluster at best. There was one classroom meant to hold all school-aged children unfortunate enough to be there. Our time spent there was more of a formality than anything else. Everyone just kind of accepted that… everyone, that is, except Mom.] _That, and she had a yoga class. _[Now that makes more sense.]_ I was putting gum on all of your chairs _[James released a smothered cry, but was quickly silenced by warning glances from the rest of us] _when Teacher came in with this new guy. He looked about my age, and he seemed really nervous. Teacher was talking to him in this voice that made me want to gag. I was trying to get out before she noticed me, but of course she saw me._

"_Katie." She said. "I hate you, so I want you to show John around the Palm Woods. Make him feel at home." _[I suspected time had altered Katie's memory a bit. Teacher was a perfectly nice person… But I let her continue the story.] _I took John to the pool, but he said he was afraid of water and that he just wanted to go settle in. He was staying in 3B, so I took him upstairs to his room. He asked if I could help him unpack. Being the saint I am _[I reminded myself that Katie was in a bad place right now, and refrained from laughing at the top of my lungs.] _I of course lent him a hand._

"_Do you have any friends?" he asked. I said that I had you guys, Jo and Camille, and Kelly and Gustavo, so yeah, I had friends. Then he said that you guys don't count and that I was probably making you up because I was too dumb to have friends and then he pushed me so I told him that he shouldn't push girls but he said that I wasn't a girl I was a stupid brat and then he pushed me again and I fell and he pulled my hair so I ran out of the room – _[Katie took a deep breath, tears flowing down her face now] – _but he wouldn't leave me alone and every time I see him he pushes me or hits me and tells me I'm stupid and he took my lunch and I haven't had a smoothie in two weeks because I'm too afraid he's going to pour it on my head like he did then! _[Katie's voice broke and she buried her face into my shoulder, shaking more violently than I'd thought possible.]

(only KENDALL)

I was frozen. I wanted desperately to comfort her as she sat there bawling, join Carlos in rubbing her back soothingly, echo Logan's comforting words, pace the room angrily with James vowing revenge, but I couldn't move a muscle. Two words stuck out to me, in all of that, two words reverberated in my brain. _Two weeks?_

"Katie?" I said. My voice was hushed, but all four other occupants in the room immediately redirected their attention towards me, picking up on the urgency in my tone. "How long ago did you meet John?" Katie stiffened under my arm, suddenly studying her bare toes very intently.

"A month ago." She whispered. My blood ran cold. _A month?_ My sister had been bullied for _a month_ and I hadn't realized it? All of a sudden, my head was very clear. Logan probably would have said it was the adrenaline sharpening my instincts and calming my erratic energies in an ancient preparation for battle. I just went with _I was seriously pissed._

The rest of the night went smoothly. The four of us boys sang Katie to sleep, just like I used to back home, and she slept peacefully through the rest of the night. We agreed to stay in her room, just in case. I lay awake, head tilted up on her massive pile of pillows. Katie was curled on my chest, Logan and James sprawled half below me, and Carlos stretched in a tangle about our legs.

In the morning, Katie headed off with Mom to the grocery store. There was a silent understanding between the boys and I, and without any exchange of words, we marched for 3B. _Nobody messed with our little sister._

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**I thought about continuing the end to include the boys beating up on John, but I kind of liked this ending better... The story isn't about John, after all. It's about Kendall and Katie. :)**


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